Monday, October 25, 2010

Basil Wolverton is one of the few comic book artists whose work can legitimately be called unique. Although he created such serious adventure features as Spacehawk, he's best remembered for such non-serious and nonsensical inventions as Powerhouse Pepper, Mystic Moot and his Magic Snoot, and the grotesqueries he later drew for Mad and Plop!

While Spacehawk's adventures did somewhat parallel those of the pulp and newspaper strip science fiction, there was nobody else who had encounters quite like this! He met the oddest aliens and creatures and experienced the strangest interplanetary adventures of any spaceman.

One of the major appeals of Wolverton's space opera was the artwork. He was very good at gadgets, especially the kind that require lots of nuts and bolts. His spaceships had the bulk and feel of ocean liners, the control rooms were as cluttered with pipes and dials as an apartment-house basement.

This collection published by Eclipse Comics, which I ordinarily keep stored in my Horror collection but am tempted to create a "Just Plain Weird" genre just for it, reprints "Brain Bats of Venus," "Man From The Moon!," "Escape To Death!," "Flight To The Future!," and Nightmare World!"